Eco-Media Track back again for Allied Media Conference 2011

June 12, 2011

EMEAC’s Remedia Program will once again team with the Green Guerillas out of Ithaca, New York at the upcoming Allied Media Conference 2011 to coordinate three days of media making workshops June 24-26. For the second year in a row, Remedia and the Green Guerillas will come together to coordinate AMC’s Eco-Justice Media Track, which documents the exploration the environmental landscape of Detroit to the farthest reaches of a mind/body vision of space itself through holistic health.

“I am really excited about the evolution in holistic justice work that I see taking place as evidenced by the Allied Media Conference,” said EMEAC associate director Lottie Spady who also directs the Remedia Program. “Last year was the first time there was an Eco-Justice Media Track that specifically connected environmental justice to media and digital justice. It was also the first time I had the pleasure of working closely with the Green Guerillas and other youth environmental justice media makers. I was so geeked to know there were more of ‘us’ out there.”

The Eco-Media Track will begin on Friday, June 26 with an environmental justice tour of Detroit co-sponsored by the Detroit Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice Office. The theme of the three-hour, two-bus tour is “Neighborhood Stories of Healing and Change.” Tour guides for the tour will be Spady and Rhonda Anderson of the Sierra Club EJ Office.

Participants will travel beyond the four walls of the AMC to learn about, reflect upon, and co-create eco-media that connects their home communities with environmental justice issues facing poor and underserved residents in Detroit. The tour will highlight Southwest Detroit’s industrial corridor – the most polluted zip code in the state of Michigan, which is also home to Marathon Oil, the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant, and the fourth largest steelmaker in the United States. The tour will engage with the local community’s long history of organizing, and fighting for environmental protection. It will also invite participants to an interactive tour to discuss and learn about the critical role environmental justice media plays in the movement.

Day two of the Eco Media Track will consist of a two-part Food Justice and Eco-Media Field Trip. The theme for part one is “What’s for Dinner?” It will send out a call to all teens hungry for real food and sustainable change. It will help answer essential questions around food justice during this field trip to a nearby farm. Participants will team up with peers and elders to prepare a zero-waste local foods group meal. With support from the Detroit Food Justice Task Force, People’s Kitchen, and Red Mesa Cuisine, this community-cooking workshop will encourage all to embrace the radical notion that “we are what we eat.” Space is limited to 24 teens; RSVP by sending an email toleslie@stamp-cny.org, or by calling607-277-2122.

Part two of the Food Justice Eco-Media Field Trip will consist of a Farm Dinner and Open Mic session on Saturday evening at the Spaulding Court Living Community. Any young people feeling under-nourished by mainstream media’s promotion of fat, sugar, and fossil fuels are invited to join Remedia and the Green Guerillas for dinner and share their vision of food justice media. This community kitchen workshop and open lens/mic event will be powered by the Green Guerrillas’ solar-powered veggie diesel bus and will encourage us all to re-define corporate food narratives and embrace the radical notion that we are what we eat. Space is limited to 24 teens; RSVP by sending an email toleslie@stamp-cny.org, or by calling607-277-2122.

The final day of the Eco-Media Track will focus on making “Compostable Cosmic Connections: Closing Sessions for Survival and Sustainability.” On the final day of the 2011 AMC, EMEAC and the Green Guerillas will be calling all Earthy Enthusiasts as they wrap up a weekend’s worth of transformative actions. They will look at the environmental justice tour of Detroit, and a teen farm-to-fork dinner featuring local foods, kids cooking, and culinary-related multi-media arts. All are invited to partake in the last daily special on the eco-media menu: an open caucus exploring the unique connections between urban/local, land/community, (inter-galactic) universe/abundance, and composting toilets.

Finally, there will be a virtual “boxing match” where coordinators will tackle life’s contradictions while re-imagining sustainability by creating a new galaxy which balances collaboration and personal accountability; life-affirming actions and green privilege, and survival and wealth in the age of technology.

“Get.read to blast.off,” says Spady. “Last year, it was great to meet up with (the Green Guerillas) from across the nation and make something so needed and beautiful happen. From the collaboration of an environmental justice CD for fundraising to hosting a jam-packed EJ tour with on-the-spot media being made and shared, it was wonderful. This year will definitely be next level with the series of workshops that are planned. Everyone should be sure to check it out."